Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

tahar ben jalloun

prostate; nothing else. Don’t worry!” I take in the information and I say nothing. Disciplined and confident overall, I prepare to live a year “without”. I obsess over this absence even if I am persuaded that it’s not permanent. I live with a loss. No, loss is too strong of a word; however, there is something dead in this story; not only sex, but also certain habits and attitudes. Without a prostate, you put yourself to the side, in an eternal waiting room where you can ignore what you are waiting for and for as long as you need. Put to the side, disposed, placed in authority and, like an unclaimed package, at the end of a year and a day, they get rid of you. You see yourself seated on a bench under a pale light and you watch the sun that is so proper you

say to yourself there aren’t even ants by which you could follow the back and forth. No, the sun has been cleaned several times a day. It shines. It is impeccable. It smells of cleanser. Then they imagine you on another bench in a garden. It ’s cold outside. People pass without looking at you; each one vacant of their destiny. Your own destiny has something strange. You say to yourself, inevitably: “Why me? What have I done wrong in my life to deserve this? Is it divine or human punishment? Is it the vengeance of a certain woman that I did not truly love? Why do I feel guilty? After all, I didn’t do anything wrong…” It’s stupid, but it’s human. I look around me. Athletes in good shape pass by in a rush. They stink of good health. I don’t want to be like them. I

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